Best Skimmer for Large System (for the price)?

[REEF-DADDY]

Here is what you do, call Jeremy at premium aquatics. Tell him MarineDepot sells the Bullet3 for $469 and will ship for free, then tell him liveaquaria sells the PCX-70 hp for $153. He'll price match and you have the skimmer in less than 5 days. I guaruntee it will blow away the other skimmers mentioned for $622 delivered to your door. You'll save money in the long run because you'll never need to upgrade and you'll never say, gee I should of went bigger. That being said you could even do a Bullet2($369) if you don't want to go too crazy, but you'll be thinking about the Bullet 3.

[gcarroll]

Originally posted by REEF-DADDY
Here is what you do, call Jeremy at premium aquatics. Tell him MarineDepot sells the Bullet3 for $469 and will ship for free, then tell him liveaquaria sells the PCX-70 hp for $153.

I don't understand why one would want to reward Jeremy at premium aquatics for marketing products at a higher price than his competitors. Just buy the skimmer at MD and the pump at LA. Or at least by both at MD where they will also price match the pump. and you still get free shipping.

[deansreef]

i have an ASM G4 on my 180 and it does a great job

[gcarroll]

Since we have been having this discussion on skimmers I was wondering: How does one tell if a skimmer is truly performing at a high level? What is to say that one skimmer is better than another (other than build quality)? Just a question that I have always wondered.

[dhnguyen]

mokujin22 - Maybe you have seen this or maybe not but it's worth checking into. Hella cheaper than anything else for sure and looks simple enough to make

The entire thread
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...hreadid=769752


And the skimmer
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...&pagenumber=10

[Detritivore]

you forgot bubbleking

[dhnguyen]

well he did say he wanted to stay around $500 range that ruled out the Bubble King

[Detritivore]

i was just kidding , hence the smilies....

but, he also said he didnt mind spending more, as long as it was justified. for <$500, ASM or DIY are pretty what much fits the budget.

also, to the original poster, what is more important to you, energy efficiency/noise or the biggest bang for the buck? if energy efficiency/noise is more important, than a NW or the like would probably be better. on the other hand, if you just want raw power and dont mind the electricity or noise, a beckett would probably be the best choice. keep in mind to, that pumps(any brand) will add heat to the water.

one more thing, another brand to consider would be H&S, basically the same as deltec (and not a knock-off) but a little cheaper in most cases.

[REEF-DADDY]

Originally posted by gcarroll
I don't understand why one would want to reward Jeremy at premium aquatics for marketing products at a higher price than his competitors. Just buy the skimmer at MD and the pump at LA. Or at least by both at MD where they will also price match the pump. and you still get free shipping.

Because the service is much better and you can get the best price on both products and only place one order.

[gcarroll]

Originally posted by REEF-DADDY
Because the service is much better and you can get the best price on both products and only place one order.

So other than him being gracious enough to have a higher asking price for his products than Marine Depot, what else makes his service so much better?

[sjm817]

I've dealt with both MD and PA quite a bit. PA has far and away superior CS. If i were buying a product that had questionable CS from the mfgr such as ER, I'd definitely want a vendor that would make things right if there was a problem. IME, PA is that type of vendor, MD is not. JME, and JMO.

I'm really acronym happy tonight!

[REEF-DADDY]

Originally posted by gcarroll
So other than him being gracious enough to have a higher asking price for his products than Marine Depot, what else makes his service so much better?

What makes you think I care where you order it from? Use MD please!

I can call PA get one of 3 different people, give them my first name and they know who I am and what I've ordered. I used MD, LA, AND PA. I've spent thousands at each place. PA is the only place this happens. Free market being what it is, no one has the best price on everything. Any place that is willing to work for my business is OK in my book. Bottom line is if I ordered the pump and skimmer from MD it would of been more money although the skimmer was cheaper, LA does not even sell the skimmer. I spent the least amount of money by using PA for both. Do I care if you or anyone else uses PA? NO! As someone that just wasted money on a less than perfect skimmer(ASM) and needed to find a replacement on a budget I am just sharing my experience. If you prefer to use MD, god bless you. I am not going to argue with you.

[h20cooled]

You can make a Deltec AP702 clone for around $500. That's what I'm currently making and it will end up at right about the $500 mark, I could have cut off about $140 but I wanted a cone transition and twist lock neck. This skimmer will easily handle a 400 gallon tank. Here is a picture of the skimmer I'm just waiting for the transition and neck assembly and then it will be completed.

Rich

It will be around 24" tall, the reaction chamber is 10" diameter and it has 2x Sedra 5000 needle wheel/venturi pumps.

[fishdoc11]

For $500 on a tank that size the ONLY option IMO is an MR3. If you want to go up to $700 then a Geo dual pump needlewheel would be in order. If you want a needlewheel you really need to look at dual pump skimmers and those are pretty pricey
FWIW, Chris

[bergzy]

if you are handy and have some space (read: not fitting your skimmer in your stand/underneath your tank)...then it is basically impossible to beat a well designed and well built counter current skimmer.

if you dont mind the ugly factor...you could make an absolute killer 8" skimmer that is 6' tall, along with the feed pump, airstones etc for well under $500. what is ugly?

no, not this:


but it sure is up there in the top three.

ugly would be the whole thing made of opaque pvc:
http://www.hawkfish.org/snailman/diy8inskimmer.htm

i modified the design a little to be a little better (a little more $$$ but aesthetically more pleasing).

i have found CLEAR PVC in 8" diameter etc...with the end price being somewhere near $1000 for a complete 10' skimmer.

i may be stepping on a whole lotta toes...but i seriously doubt that any 'consumer' (please dont link the $25k rk2 skimmer to my response) skimmer would come close to this skimmer. i was in the middle of planning it until a 390g acylic tank fell into my lap and has since distracted my energies!

what to do with a 10' high 8" diameter skimmer? power it with an alita 60 airpump (an alita 80 would kick even better) along with a 6 to 8 airstone skimmer manifold. with the availability of uniseals now...it is so much easier to drill and attach pipes to cylinders now.

just throwing out options...

sometimes the 'bought' stuff isnt always the best! again, my opinion only...

[fishdoc11]

Now that's ugly

bergzy do you have a problem with having to adjust your countercurrent skimmer a bunch(like every day or so) to get optimal production out of it? I heard that from an "expert" once and have allways wondered if that was entirely true.

In my post above I should have stated only option for $500 that you can buy



Chris

[bergzy]

hi chris,

i havent built the monster skimmer yet...but the internal water level should be no different than that of adjusting a beckett.

i was in the planning stage of it...have all the part no's when this monster i acquired two weeks ago has since been occupying my spare time...getting it cleaned up etc...



the level of my beckett fluctuates a little if my sump volume fluctuates (for various reasons)...i am going to solve this by placing a pvc pipe that keeps the water level exactly the same height regardless of sump water height.

but once the water height in the column is etablished...i dont see why there would be more maintenance than any other skimmer. the new ceramic airstones that drive the whole skimmer are reputed to be far, far superior in longevity than the wooden airstones of past!

the biggest pita would be getting the right amount of air into the skimmer. too much..and your foam is way too wet (how many people do you hear complaining about that) and too little air...well, that doesnt do jack.

why have i fallen back into total favor of counter currents? because the one thing that has eluded control with most beckett, venturi, needlewheel etc skimmers is that you can not increase air input if you wanted...even if you injected air from a large airpump...you will upset the orignal design balance and 'freak' out the skimmer.

in addition, the 'dwell' time that the water to be skimmed can hang in the skimmer for a very, very long time. for example, the 10'x8" skimmer would have a pump that feeds about 700gph to it. for a kimmer of this size, combine it with a constant source of fine bubbles form the airstones...what other better scenario can possible be imagined?

of course, the biggest disadvantage of counter currents is that they really need to be tall to be effective. not everyone has the luxury of having their equipment remotely placed with a 20 foot high or so garage ceiling to place a skimmer in.

have a great saturday!!!

[baja_hammer2003]

[baja_hammer2003]

best bag for the bux

[fishdoc11]

Thanks for the response bergzy Any skimmer will fluctuate if you don't keep the water level exactly the same. The easiest thing to do is to put in a baffle. The reason I have heard air driven skimmers fluctuate form day to day is air pressure and how that effects the air pump and bubble formation.

I want a pic of that thing working Baja. I've seen dry pics but no wet ones

[baja_hammer2003]

Geo pulling the gunk it fills the cup in 3 to 4 days holds about 3 gallons plus in cup it`s a beast

[Turtleshell]

For around $700 you can get a dual Sedra 5000 recirculating needle wheel skimmer from Reefmania. A very good skimmer. Much better than the ASM line. Compare it to the EuroReef line, similar construction at a whole lot less. I've had a ASM g-3, ER 6-3, 8-2, 12-1 and AquaC. For the money Reefmania goes pretty far.

[fishdoc11]

Sweet! Thanks baja

Turtleshell,
A dual GX 4100 Geo skimmer is the same price FWIW. Got a link to the reefmania?

[kawasaki00]

Originally posted by REEF-DADDY
Did you ever hook up the panworld 200 pump?

I did try the 200 pump, the problem I was having is that the skimmer would overflow because even with the gate all the way open it still poured out of the collection cup. Is there anyone that is running the 200 without a riser?

[REEF-DADDY]

Originally posted by fishdoc11
Sweet! Thanks baja

Turtleshell,
A dual GX 4100 Geo skimmer is the same price FWIW. Got a link to the reefmania?

Georges stuff is top notch!